Beyond Baking

Menna from Menna Rachel has nominated me for the Mystery Blogger Award. Menna is an aspiring make up artist who shares her journey to becoming a make up artist, book reviews and baking recipes! You can head find her blog here.

What is the Mystery Blogger Award?

“Mystery Blogger Award” is an award for amazing bloggers with ingenious posts. Their blog not only captivates; it inspires and motivates. They are one of the best out there, and they deserve every recognition they get. This award is also for bloggers who find fun and inspiration in blogging, and they do it with so much love and passion. (Okoto Enigma, Award Creator.)

What to do?

Put the award logo/image on your blog.

List the rules.

Thank whoever nominated you and provide a link to their blog.

Mention the creator of the award and provide a link as well.

Tell your readers 3 things about yourself.

You have to nominate 10 – 20 people.

Notify your nominees by commenting on their blog.

Ask your nominees any 5 questions of your choice; with one weird or funny question (specify).

Share a link to your best post(s).

Three things about me:

I am a walking contradiction. I like dressing up but rarely do as I like wearing oversize jerseys and feeling comfortable. I’m very creative but also very analytical. I love all things gothic and horror yet my I’m also quite girly at heart.

I watch the first Harry Potter movie whenever I’m sick. I remember watching it during the night when I was around 8 years old when I couldn’t sleep due to chicken pox and have since found it comforting whenever I feel run down.

I recently moved to Australia from New Zealand.

Questions Menna Asked

Which is better, beans on toast or fish fingers and custard? Hmm I’m going to have to say beans on toast. I could actually eat that combination and I have in the past, where as, I am not a fan of of fish or custard and together sounds like hell!

Where’s your favourite place, and why? That is a really tough question! I have a lot of favourite places in terms of travel but nothing beats home. Home in New Zealand as it is where I am the most comfortable. Where I can be myself, relax with a good movie and cuddle my cats!

What has been your favourite part of your blogging journey so far? Another tough one! Probably a mixture of learning all the new skills I have. Without blogging I wouldn’t have taught myself website design, development, social media managing, marketing and all that goes with running a blog/business. Also all the recipes I get to create and ‘taste test’. 😉

What’s your Hogwarts house? Until today I have never taken that test but I just took the test and I am apparently in Gryffindor for my bravery, courage, risk taking and leadership skills.

Do you prefer to watch films or read books? Both. I love reading. I read all the time and movie adaptations will never beat the book I also adore movies. If you didn’t already know I am an aspiring film maker so movies are a big passion and huge part of my life!

My Top 5 Blog Posts

Thank you, Menna, for nominating me! This is such a fun experience and it’s great to connect with more bloggers, share some of my favourite blog posts and engage with readers. Be sure to check out everyone’s blog, I’ve put all of their links above!

Hi guys! It’s been a while since I’ve posted about any life updates, blog updates and just generally chatted with you so I thought I start off with a bang and say I have a new logo!

New Logo Thoughts

I love it! I feel like the logo is simple but combines my passion for baking with my passion for photography and film making. The logo is simple but bold and combines the colour scheme I chose on a whim two years ago but a colour scheme I have come to love. I was lucky enough to have Katherine Dickerson (http://girlonthewander.com/) design it for me. If you get a chance, definitely go check her out!

ANZAC Day. The anniversary and the remembrance of the landing of Australian and New Zealand troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey, in World War I on April 25, 1915. It is also used as a day to honor all service men and women who have fought in wars and conflicts in the name of our country.

As ANZAC Day is tomorrow for Australians and New Zealanders, I thought I would do a little post on this. For those of you who do not know about ANZAC Day, I will start at the very beginning.

ANZAC – Australia and New Zealand Army Corps.

As mentioned above, the ANZAC’s landed in Gallipoli to help the British forces capture the Dardanelles, the gateway to the Bosphorus and the Black Sea. Unfortunately, the campaign was a disaster and at the end, Gallipoli was still held by its Turkish defenders.

It was appalling conditions. Trench warfare, little food and water, the camps were rife with disease and infection. The list goes on and on. Thousands lost their lives. For the allies there were 141,000 casualties of whom more than 44,000 died. Of the dead, 8,709 were Australians and 2,701 were New Zealanders. For the Turkish Soliders, there were at least 85,000 deaths.

Last year marked the 100th Anniversary of the Gallipoli campaign and to commemorate that, I noticed there had been – and still is – a lot of different documentaries, movies and programs about different aspects of World War I and life around that time.

These are just a couple of examples of the recent portrayals of that time. For me, as a lover of history and a movie buff, they are right up my alley!

In New Zealand a huge massive exhibition began at Te Papa, our national museum, commemorating the 100th anniversary of ANZAC. It is packed full of information and the most amazing thing of all…. huge realistic statues of soldiers. They are around 2.4 times the size of a man but when you are standing next to them it feels more like seven times the size! They are so detailed you can see the hairs on their arms, the shine of their eyes, even the chipped nails! The exhibition is called Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War.

I don’t want to bore you with too many details as I know this is a baking blog not a history blog but if you want to know more you can research this or check out the different films and documentaries on this subject.

Amazingly, I have still managed to link this little history lesson back to baking. ANZAC Day is not all sad, we also celebrate by eating ANZAC Biscuits! It is claimed that the biscuits were sent by wives and families to soldiers serving at Gallipoli because the ingredients do not spoil easily and they kept well during transportation. Today, we Aussies and Kiwis, eat them for pleasure because they really are quite delicious. To find the recipe for my ANZAC Biscuits, you can click here.